View full sizeCleveland Browns running back Brandon Jackson gets wrapped up by Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker Larry Foote in the first half of the Dec. 30 game at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer

I took my son-in-law, Nathan, to the Browns-Steelers game in Pittsburgh on Dec. 30. My friend, John, and his son, John Jr., also drove down from Cleveland and met us at Heinz Field. Nathan grew up in Chagrin Falls, but he and my daughter now live in New Hampshire. They were visiting us for the Christmas holidays. One of my friends at work, who is from Pittsburgh, had given us his tickets, knowing how eager Nathan and John Jr. were to see the Browns play in his city.

Nathan and I walked by the tailgaters in the parking lot at Heinz Field, two solitary orange figures in a sea of black and gold, wondering how we would be treated by the Steelers fans. We met another one of my business colleagues, Brennan, who was cooking up pulled pork sandwiches beneath a Steelers flag. Brennan proudly showed us his Steelers tickets on the 50-yard line, passed down to him from his father, who had inherited them from Brennan's grandfather. Now Brennan plans to pass them on to his own children.

Nathan, John, John Jr. and I sat in a cold, biting wind through the usual Browns-Steelers debacle, a 24-to-10 loss. Sports commentators in Cleveland have been lamenting that the Browns may have "lost an entire generation of our children" because of their poor play in the last several years, but I saw just the opposite in Nathan and John Jr. They were undaunted by the weather, the Steelers fans or the Browns' loss. John Jr. wore his Browns stocking cap with a smile. Hoping to annoy the Steelers fans around us, Nathan took off his coat to expose his Browns jersey. He sat there shivering through the entire game, happily texting pictures of the Browns to several of his friends in other cities, part of the diaspora of Cleveland children seeking their destinies elsewhere, but still seeing the Browns as a powerful symbol of home.

At halftime, a Steelers fan came up to us, his three teenage children in tow. He asked me how we could stand rooting for a team that had been "so terrible for such a long time." I could tell he meant well, and was genuinely interested in how we felt. I couldn't think of a good response and muttered something about how the Browns had beaten the Steelers in their previous game.

As Nathan and I walked back to our car after yet another loss, I thought about what I wished I had said to that Steelers fan at halftime:

"You're just like us. You're not here only for the game. You're here for a more important reason -- to pass on something to your children. I bet you went to your first Steelers game with your dad or grandfather. You probably don't remember who won, but I'm sure you remember who took you to the game.

"I remember watching Jim Brown at Cleveland Municipal Stadium with my dad. He lifted me up in his strong arms so I could see the field. Years later, I took a chance and invited a young girl to her first Browns game. She loved it, and we've missed only a few games in the 37 years since. I remember walking with her all the way up to the next-to-the-last row in the upper deck to watch Brian Sipe. A few weeks later, we had our first child. Ten years after that, we sat in better seats with our three girls and cheered Bernie Kosar's touchdown passes."

As Nathan and I drove back to Cleveland, listening to the speculation on WTAM AM/1100 about yet another change of head coach, I wondered whether I would ever be able to share the excitement of a Browns Super Bowl with my children. But as darkness fell and we approached the Ohio line, just a little over an hour from home, I dreamed of something far better -- taking my grandchildren to their first game in Cleveland Browns Stadium.

Thomas A. Piraino Jr. is the vice president, general counsel and secretary of Parker Hannifin Corp. in Cleveland.

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